I have been really disappointed with the availability of good game music radio on the internet on a whole, and do miss the RPGFan radio (but if you know a good one, please do tell). I was actually thinking that it would be great to start an RPG music podcast (on my own or perhaps in collaboration with other people interested?). But one of the things stopping me from doing this is concerns about the copyright and royalty stuff. Does anyone have advice about how to handle music rights on a podcast for game music? I have a pretty extensive (although not exhaustive) game music collection so I wouldn't mind doing a few casts.... However these copyright horror stories would prevent me from doing casts, even if it did inspire people to buy game music, I would be afraid of legal consequences. Anyone have advice on this topic?

I used to do a music podcast, and I kept it restricted to just my friends for exactly that reason. I "distributed" it by setting up a gmail account, emailing the podcasts to myself, and having my friends log on and download the show. Just didn't want to deal with the whole copyright thing.

Here's what a guy whose music podcast gets thousands of listeners has to say on the subject:

Thanks for the information. I would have to admit that I am not adventerous enough right now to spend $300 of my own money just to secure rights to play music for 1/2 of a year unless I thought that sort of money could be made back through sponsors in some way, but it doesn't seem likely.

Also, is anyone sure that the American Society for composers, etc. even applies to music made in Japan?

If you really want to get down to it, you need to check out Sound Exchange (http://soundexchange.com/) for information on royalties and performer's rights. A couple years ago, there was a big movement by Sound Exchange and congress to go after all the big internet radio stations and get payment from licensing issues and copyright issues and such. They were asking for so much, it pretty much put a few companies out of business and others selling off their company (I.E.: Last.fm going to CBS Interactive).

It isn't as serious as it seems for small time broadcasters and podcasters, but it does cost money to stream audio. There are places to do live streams like SHOUTCast or SpacialNet. I personally use Live365 for Infinite.Bit Radio (http://www.live365.com/stations/evlive365?play), but mainly because I use to work there and it is cheap. Going through them at least takes care of all the licensing stuff. There are some restrictions you have to follow, but when it comes to creating a station to try to attract a lot of listeners, it takes a lot of money to do it.

Hope that helps.

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Infinite.Bit RadioDedicated station to actual video game and anime music from various soundtracks. No radio show podcasts or anything like that... Just pure 100% music. Old, new and remade tracks is what you'll hear from us.